


I don't wanna love if it's not you

by paranorman



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, no happy ending, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranorman/pseuds/paranorman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is getting married, but it's not to Harry</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't wanna love if it's not you

**Author's Note:**

> story based on, and title taken from Wedding Bells by The Jonas Brothers

Harry is smiling fondly at Niall who is cracking up about something Harry just said, the drink in his hand dangerously close to spilling over. He takes a look around the room while he waits for Niall to recover. The house is overflowing with people and booze but Harry spots his friends easily enough. Zayn, the birthday boy, is smiling and dancing with Perrie in the middle of the dance floor, Liam is leaning against the far wall eyes squinting from laughter, and as he turns back to Niall, he locks eyes with Louis. Louis who he hans’t seen more than twice in the past year. Louis who broke his heart and brushed it off a teenagers fooling around. Louis with his bright eyes and cheeky grin. Louis who Harry was still hopelessly in love with.  
“Heyyyyy Harry!” He says, voice loud and slurred from the drinks “Sorry to interrupt” he leans over for a one armed hug. Harry stiffens, barely remembering to lift his arm up to touch Louis’ back before he is released.   
“LOUIS” Niall grins, and then to someone over their heads, “Oh man you made it!”. With a “sorry lads” he’s gone and it’s just Harry and Louis. 

“Hey Louis. How’ve you been?” Harry manages to ask. Louis grins up at him. Eyes and hair wild, as beautiful as ever  
“Great!” he says, taking another sip of his drink, “Great! So great. Listen, Harry you can promise to keep this down low right? ‘til everything is organized right but I just have to tell someone”  
“Yeah Louis, what is it?” he asks ‘Of course Louis, anything for you, Louis’ he thinks.  
“I’m getting married!” Louis blurts out giggling  
“What?” Harry isn’t sure he heard right   
“Yeah, I know right?! We’re thinking like, June”  
“June?”   
“Yeah I know it’s really soon but I just love him so much and I don’t want to wait. And he’s so great Harry. I can’t wait for you to meet him. You’re gonna love him everyone does. He couldn’t make it tonight, he’s working” Louis is gushing but Harry hans’t heard much since ‘getting married’. He excuses himself and if Louis looks confused he is quick to hide it with a big grin followed by “Hope you can make it!” to Harry’s retreating back 

He manages to drive home in one piece and send a quick text to Liam saying “If you get a moment tell Zayn happy birthday again and I’m sorry for leaving early” not bothering to leave an explanation, before he has his melt down.   
After the third attempt he gets his shaking hand to unlock the door and he throws his keys across the room, slamming the door behind him.   
“Fuck!” is all he can think and shout as he pulls off his constricting clothes before collapsing on his bed on his stomach. He pulls his knees under himself and clamps a pillow to his face, wordlessly yelling in to it. The yells eventually turning to sobs as he wraps the duvet around himself, like it will come anything close to the hugs he used to get from Louis

But there’s no way the cold, still duvet can compare to Louis. Louis who was always warm and unable to sit still. Louis who’s breaths would tickle the back of Harry’s neck. Louis who pursed his lips trying not to smile, as his eyes overflowed with love when he looked at Harry. Louis who whispered promises of forever in the middle of the night when it was just them. Louis who didn’t need more than a week to bury his way in to Harry’s heart forever. Louis who danced and flirted with everyone but always came back to Harry. Louis who was not here right now. Louis who hadn’t been in this bed for nearly two years. Louis who was getting married to someone else. 

\--

Harry doesn’t leave his house for two weeks. He doesn’t see any point to it. Nothing matters now that Louis is gone. This is it. This is final. There had been hope before. In the year after Louis decided he didn’t want to be with Harry like that any more. There were still lingering touches and there was still the flash of a smile before he turned away to make sure nobody could see. There was still an occasional drunken kiss and cuddle. 

The year after that there was still Louis’ racing pulse when Harry held his arm to pull him back from being run over as they crossed the street. There was still a small smile as he looked down at his lap. 

Now there was just scrunched up tissues scattered around the house. There was a permanently empty bed in the morning. There was the late hours of the afternoon that seemed to stretch on for days with no one to lie in bed with, with no one to play video games with, with no one to do the grocery shopping with. There was the silence evening with no reality television or clattering and swearing from the kitchen to fill it. 

It isn’t until he’s shaken the cereal box for the crumbs at the bottom and had pizza for dinner and breakfast for two days in a row that he forced himself out of bed and to the supermarket. He stocks up on enough to last him at least another fortnight. 

He manages to leave the house to see Niall and Ed a couple of times and act fairly normal. Liam pops in once every few days to make sure he’s all right and has enough food. Zayn calls a couple of times but gives up when Harry doesn’t call back. 

They all know something’s not right but they don’t know what it is. Because Louis asked Harry to keep it a secret and so he is. As much as he want to shout it from the rooftops and in everyone’s face until they understand the emptiness inside him, he won’t. Because he promised Louis he wouldn’t. 

\--

It’s the day before his 20th birthday when he sees Louis again. He was just finishing his breakfast and getting ready to go for a jog - something he hadn’t done in almost a month - when there is a knock on the door. When he opens the door and see’s the wind blown hair and sparkling eyes, the first thing he can say is   
“You’re up early” Louis just laughs at him, pushing his way past Harry and in to the house.   
“Yeah. I’ve been getting up early lately. I’ve got so much planning to do and there’s just not enough hours in the day it’s crazy” Harry doesn’t want to hear any more. He doesn’t want to know about the wedding that he’s not part of.   
“Why are you here?” he says  
“To give you this” Louis hands him an envelope, his name neatly written on the heavy paper. He knows what it is without opening it. He doesn’t want to see what’s inside. He doesn’t want to see it in print, he doesn’t want that to be permanently written in his mind. Louis’ name next to someone else’s, someone who isn’t Harry. So he hands it straight back to Louis  
“I don’t need this” he says  
“Why not?” Louis looks genuinely perplexed  
“You can’t expect me to go, Louis”   
“I don’t understand” He looks hurt. Good, Harry thinks. Good. Let him feel how he made me feel  
“Louis don’t do this” saying his name out loud hurts more than he could ever have imagined  
“Do what? What am I doing? Why won’t you come”  
“Because of June 2010”  
“What” Harry laughs despite being on the verge of tears. It’s dry and humorless and it makes Louis looks so sad, and it breaks his heart even more  
“June 11th 2010 you told me you loved me”  
“I was eighteen, Harry” Louis interrupts. Harry ignores him to continue,   
“You told me you loved me. And you told me you would love me forever. Do you remember that night? I know you do. It was just me and you. We were in the bungalow, and it was like every other night that summer. Except we planned out wedding, Louis. We planned when it would be and how many kids we would have. We even gave them names.”  
“Harry you were only sixteen we were so young” Louis says, he’s looking up at Harry, eyes shining, but Harry isn’t stopping now. He feels a tear escape his left eye and slide down his cheek  
“I loved you so much Louis. I still love you.”  
“Harry don’t do this”  
“I loved you the moment I saw you. And I loved you when you winked at me as you followed someone else in to the back of a cab. I loved you when you let me follow you home in the cab. I loved you when you were confused about what we were doing and didn’t talk to me for a week. I loved you more than I believed was possible when you told me you loved me too.” Harry’s vision is blurry now through the tears, and when he wipes his eyes on his sleeve he sees that Louis is looking down at his feet, wiping away tears of his own  
“I loved you even when you said you didn’t want me any more. I still lived in hope that you would come back to me. I won’t love someone else. I can’t spend my life with someone who isn’t you and I can’t watch you vow to spend the rest of your life loving someone else. I can’t let you do that without knowing that I still love you, Louis” his voice catches on the last syllable of Louis’ name. 

He has nothing left to say. He watches Louis through his whole speech. Louis doesn’t look up once. And now that he’s done Louis still doesn’t look up, he can’t.   
“I’m so sorry Harry” he mumbles  
“No you’re not” and it’s the truth. Because Louis looks up, and Harry sees those shining blue eyes one last time before Louis turns around and walks out of his life forever. 


End file.
